Well, we all know that the Ed Whitfield campaign in Western Kentucky are thieves and vandals, led by a coward, but now they are desperate. After Heather started running ads in Hopkinsville, a story ran that accused Heather of "faking her own death". What??? You must read on.....
A story ran in Hopkinsville that Heather had faked her own death to keep from paying rent. Here is the crux:
According to the station, in January 2006 Heather Ryan moved to an apartment on Fisher Boulevard in Paducah. On the night of August 31, 2006, Heather Ryan’s (then) landlord claims that she moved out, breaking the terms of her lease that wasn’t up until the end of that year. She didn’t notify her landlord and owed $2,495.50 at that time for the remainder of the year.
On September 20, 2006, her landlord sent a letter that claimed she wasn’t returning cell phone messages and that her local phone was disconnected. They promised legal action for the debt she owed.
Shortly after that letter was sent, the landlord received a letter signed by "Helena Ryan Spencer" - who claimed to be Heather’s sister. The letter claimed that Heather moved out because of her mother’s cancer. Aaaaaand... wait for it... claimed that Heather herself was killed in an automobile accident just hours after her mother died.
So, according to this report, Heather Ryan allegedly faked her death to get out of paying her rent.
In March 2007 her landlord discovered she was alive and took her to court. She lost a small claims case and paid over $1,900 to settle.
http://pageonekentucky.com/...
Notice first that the debt was paid.
Now, here is Heather's response:
There’s really no story here. The Republican Party has been shopping this story to media outlets for weeks, which we know about because random people have contacted me about a rumor they heard from the RPK about a "dead sister" for the past few weeks.
Here’s the real skinny. I moved out of my apartment 4 months before my lease was over in 2006 because my husband and I were getting married and we were consolidating houses and expenses. As you know Western Kentucky’s economy is downtrodden and my income was abysmal. I didn’t want to try to hold onto an apartment that I couldn’t afford on my $11.00 an hour job at Harrah’s Casino - the best game in town was a secretarial gig in a casino in another state. I felt it was unfair to the property owners if they would have to evict me for inability to pay. Plus, my landlords were out of state land owners and on the first of every month they had a person come around to every apartment to dun tenants for rent. I really hated that strong arm tactic and didn’t want to find myself in a situation where I had to avoid the landlords minions. So my husband, Crystal and Chris helped me move out. The funny thing about it is that the landlords just happened to be in town that weekend, where we had a conversation in front of everyone about how I was moving to another place in Paducah but understood my obligation and would work out a payment arrangement. That’s the part I find most entertaining about the Republican Spin - I had witnesses to the whole ordeal.
Anyway, several months later, I received a letter from the court in Paducah stating that the landlords were taking me to small claims court for breaking the lease. I didn’t dispute this - I signed the lease and I agreed that I needed to pay the additional rent. No dispute, I didn’t even contest the charges. Apparently this was my major mistake because I have no idea what they brought to court as "evidence". I don’t know if they submitted paperwork from a "sister" (I have two brothers, no sisters, not sure where this came from). I don’t know if the Republican Party came up with this "letter from the dead sister" - I just don’t know. When the judgement came my way, I was the Executive Director of the Non-Profit for which McConnell had me fired. So when the judgement came, I WAS THE ONE who processed the wage attachment!!! LOL! Does this sound like someone who was desperately attempting to get out of a debt? Oh please! I owned up to my responsibility and paid the debt. End of story. Simple landlord dispute - settled. I suppose if Ed Whitfield lived in the district, he might have landlord disputes on occassion too - but allas, he has no such problems because of his 5 homes, none are in Kentucky - and he sure as hell makes more than the $28,000 I made a year as a non-profit director - so he doesn’t have to worry about "Landlord Gate".
By the way, the news station did NOT contact me for comment on this story! I appreciate you contacting me before running with this crazy crap!! They’ve obviously been working on this story for a while - they could have contacted us at any point to straighten this out but chose not to.
http://pageonekentucky.com/...
So Heather doesn't have sister, and her mother is alive. She fulfilled her obligations by law. Was she to be penalized for getting married??
This story shows the desperate lengths a campaign that knows their candidate helped causethe economy to crash all while voting against women and against children while supporting big money lobbyists will sink to in order to keep their greedy hold on power.
Typical Republican smear tactict.
Please help us hit back hard with our T.V. ads. Notice none of this happened until Heather hit the airwaves. Go here and fight back against the Republican Smear Machine:
They are desperate to talk about anything but what has happened, and what can happen with real leadership. Please help us fight back!!